I have a few theme ideas. One is CHILD'S PLAY and would allow people to play up childhood regression fantasies, do lots of toy related things. Imagine a giant jungle gym or tinker toy construction out on the playa.

My other theme idea was MASSAGE. Maybe we wouldn't get the best art, but we could all give and get (always, give first!) lots of massages.

Finally, I have the theme name MAN VERSUS INSECT, but no concept behind it yet.

We could then all do stuff related to the (not too distant) future that we either fear, dream of, aspire too, demand, imagine, etc.

Is educational in some ways - as it gets us to think of what the world may look/be like if left to roll along on the tracks already laid out for it. Maybe we'll all be underwater - maybe we'll be under ice - maybe creativity will be banned - maybe dreams monitored - maybe there will be a spiritual revolution... Who knows...

Just simply fun in others - as a very open theme. I'd personally be going all space age. Was thinking of creating a bar at the end of the universe, complete with alien staff and music by Vangelis. Open only at sunset and sunrise...

So I guess i'd be keen to have a theme that makes me think of/explore things that I'd otherwise not think of. Something meaningful - yet at the same time open to not being meaningful and just being fun.

Can't wait to find out. I know in my heart that any theme will be OK though - the interpretation is left to us after all... (Though the 'hat's' one sounds a little narrow :])

I think it's time for burningman to make fun of itself. Challenge people's defenses, by making the theme "Offensive" or something everyone there has become hypersensitive to. Maybe "Squirting Water", "Spectator" or "For Sale".

Sorry Zona, I'll have no fun guessing. I find this whole theme business sort of like those stickers on the Publisher's Clearing House Give Away, a way to make you feel like you're involved and have power when it's really all a scam...

Yes, I do swim in a cynical school.

The Lady with a Lamprey

"The powerful are exploiting people, art and ideas, and this leads to us plebes debating how to best ration ice.Man, no wonder they always win....." Lonesomebri

Last night, while alone with my thoughts, I was thinking of themes. I was thinking about body parts. You must admit, we all had our giggles that one year when we partied and camped out on Uranus! Just a thought.

tonight the voices in god's head are telling me the theme will be 'magic' if that is what i desire. all i need to do, say the voices, is majestically proclaim some choice incantations and presto, thy will be done and so forth. i'll let you know if i get around to it.

Art Deco, Stalinist Stuff, Man Rises and Falls based on how hopefull and fearfull the city is (Voting terminals).

blah blah blah

That is all.

No, that's is not all. It's a lot, but that's not all. You completely left off the main theme. Hope and Fear is a supertitle, the thing that qualifys how the main subject will be addressed. Art deco and Soviet mondern to be addressed via parody.

Ginger Boy is either a plant, or a true psychic. A "one-post wonder".

I will not fear. Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone . . . there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

I had another one of my weird Burning Man dreams the other night...One detail that I remember clearly was holding and commenting on a BM 2006 ticket, which bore a large, dark picture of a sprawling mansion and the word "Mansions" in large Roman text. I was reminded a little bit of the Disney Haunted Mansion, or possibly the creepy plantation house from The Skeleton Key.